The March 2020 month-end collection of India’s startup news, from Startup News Asia.
Each month, we gather India’s startup news, along with venture capital funding items and tech news to produce a monthly summary, in this case for March 2020. Items are drawn from our daily news feeds, which collect startup news in India from online news sources, tech news channels and India-focused online news services; and each item linked here will take you to the original news source.
- India: Delhi is installing 150K cameras in 720 government-run schools across the city as component part of crime-cutting public safety initiative
- India: AI education module introduced to 5000 school-based labs serving 2.5M students, aiming to aid students innovate and create solutions that benefit society
- India: AjnaLens gains $1.5M with AR, VR and AI-driven applications, offering mixed reality glasses for clients in defense and education
- India: Amazon plans to take on Swiggy and Zomato, initiating trial of food delivery service in parts of Bengaluru
- India: Josh Talks, event platform for inspirational stories, gains $1.5M from New York-based Media Development Investment Fund
- India: Oda Class online learning startup backed by China’s digital education major, Yuanfudao, with live coaching, online lectures and chat-based interaction
- India: Indian Institute of Technology inks MOU with Nat’l Mineral Development Corp to support deep-tech startups with 5-year incubation program
- India: China’s Oppo smartphone maker steps into financial services in India with launch of Oppo Kash, aiming for 10M customers in 5 years
- India: Supreme Court overturns Central Bank ban on virtual currency trading, hailed as victory for digital asset industry and India’s fintech and broader tech industries
- A round-up of India’s tech, startup and VC funding news from February of this year, from Startup News Asia
- India: Reserve Bank to seek review of Supreme Court ruling which overturne ban on cryptocurrency trading
- India: Tricog healthtech startup raises $10.5M with virtual cardiology services, using AI for the diagnosis of heart failure and screening for congenital heart disease
- Microsoft Research India and Accenture Labs join forces to focus on aiding startups in social enterprise to test and validate proof of concepts
- India: Strata proptech startup raises $1.5M with the aim of creating new investment opportunities for the country’s middle class
- India: Salesken AI-backed salesperson-focused platform raises $8M with ML and data science tools to aid in the sales process
- India: A brief intro to 11 of the country’s female entrepreneurs, working in digital payments, fintech, social impact and more
- India: Neeman’s sustainable shoe maker raises $1M with footwear made with Merino wool and recycled materials
- India: A look at Pocket52, startup claiming to be the country’s first cryptographically secure online poker platform
- India: AE Ventures blockchain-focused investment firm has registered over 170 early-stage startups for 1st edition of æternity Global Starfleet Program
- India: JGI Accelerator program unveiled by Jain University Incubation Center and JGI Group, focusing on retail-tech and fintech startups
- India: Quona Capital impact investor closes emerging market-focused Accion Quona Inclusion Fund at $203M; to focus on LatAm, India, Africa and SE Asia
- India: Kotak Mahindra insurer partners GoQii healthcare wearables maker to offer fitness trackers and personal coaches, experts and doctor services to customers
- India: An intro to String Bio, biotech startup turning methane from waste or natural gas into the building blocks of protein for a variety of uses, starting with fish feed
- India: Intel India unveils the 11 tech startups selected for Plugin hardware incubator
- India: Qualcomm smart cities accelerator joined by Infosys IT services major, aiming to offer end-to-end solutions for stadiums, venues and event management
- A brief intro to 5 of India’s women entrepreneurs focusing on agricultural technology
- India: KPMG Technology Innovation Hubs report sees India move into tied second place with China for innovation, adoption and promotion of new technologies
- India: An intro to Agro2o’s counter-top ‘smart garden’, an automated indoor hydroponics system
- India: FamPay fintech startup raises $4.7M, in part from Y Combinator, with parent-supervised payments for families
- India: ICT spending estimated to rise to $144BN by 2023 from $101BN in 2018, at compound annual growth rate of 7.2%
- India: Shop101 social commerce and logistics startup set sights on $3.9M fund raise to aid entrepreneurs to sell online via WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram
- India: StanPlus medical transportation startup raises pre-Series A, aiming to help hospitals reduce response times and ambulance redundancies
- India: A look at WiJungle, aiming to solve fragmented cybersecurity with all-in-one hardware product and unified network security gateway offering
- India: Binance crypto exchange and India subsidiary WazirX establish $50M blockchain fund to support development and growth of blockchain startups
- India: SmartCoin micro-lending startup raises $7M with focus on self-employed workers and small merchants
- India: A look at Niramai, startup working on radiation-free, non-invasive breast cancer screening which detects malignancies in 15 minutes
- India: An overview of whether India’s public markets are ready to meet the capital needs of tech startups
- India: Agnikul Cosmos space-tech startup secures $3.2M with satellite launch vehicle for payloads of up to 100kg
- India: An intro to Kosh, Y Combinator-backed startup working on financial inclusion by grouping 3, or as many as 10, blue-collar workers to issue loans
- Sequoia Capital India takes 16-week Surge accelerator program online in response to COVID-19 concerns
- India: Reserve Bank sets down new guidelines to better regulate non-bank payment aggregators, looking in part at customer privacy and data storage issues
- Blockchain for India, recently-launched $50M fund backed by WazirX and Binance, aims to invest in projects and startups solving problems through blockchain
- India: Univariety education courses aggregator raises $1.1M, claiming 75K courses from more than 14K universities across 10 countries
- India: ImStrong Health And Wellness raises near $400K with ImStrong live video streaming fitness platform
- India: Government to hire consulting firm to assess Startup India initiative, aiming to create an action plan and identify investment bottlenecks
- India: CoinDCX, the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, raises $3M
- India: A brief intro to 5 of the country’s cybersecurity startups
- India: Ministry of Electronics and Info Tech incubator, Electropreneur Park, unveils 7 electronic hardware startups for pre-incubation and incubation program
- India: Facebook reportedly planning to buy 10% stake in Reliance Jio telecom firm
- Omidyar Network India social impact investment firm sets $1M fund focused on solutions for the lower 60% of India’s income group mitigate Covid-19 challenges
- India: QTalk raises $1.6M to widen interaction opportunities during smartphone calls
- India: Rupifi Technologies gains pre-seed funding with software-as-a-service platform focused on financial products for SMEs
- India: ICICI Bank launches new banking services on WhatsApp, allowing customers to check balances and transactions via the Facebook-owned platform
- Singapore’s AnyMind Group acquires India’s Pokkt Mobile Ads mobile video advertising platform, aiming for expansion into India and the Middle East
Tech news: By subject
Other subject-specific news from across Asia-Pacific in March 2020:
• Blockchain news across Asia-Pac
• Artificial Intelligence news, Asia
• Cybersecurity and data security news
Asia’s tech news, daily
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